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The plant, owned and operated by CENG, a joint venture between Exelon and Électricité de France, has two 2737 megawatt thermal (MWth) Combustion Engineering Generation II two-loop pressurized water reactors. Each generating plant (CCNPP 1&2) produces approximately 850 megawatt electrical (MWe) net or 900 MWe gross. Each plant's electrical load consumes approximately 50 MWe. These are saturated steam plants (non-superheated) and are approximately 33% efficient (ratio of 900 MWe gross/2700 MWth core). Only the exhaust of the single high-pressure main turbine is slightly superheated by a two-stage reheater before delivering the superheated steam in parallel to the three low-pressure turbines. Unit 1 uses a General Electric–designed main turbine and generator, while Unit 2 uses a Westinghouse–designed main turbine and generator.[1] The heat produced by the reactor is returned to the bay, which operates as a cooling heat-sink for the plant.

Unit 1 went into commercial service in 1975 and Unit 2 in 1977.[1] The total cost of the two units was approximately 766 million USD.[2]

Unit 1 had its two steam generators replaced in 2002 and its reactor vessel closure head replaced in 2006, while unit 2 had its two steam generators replaced in 2003, and its vessel closure head replaced in 2007.[citation needed]

The water around the plant (see lower-right-center of photograph) is a very popular place for anglers. Unit 1 & 2 each takes in bay water (from the fenced-in area) to cool its steam driven turbine condensers plus other bay-water–cooled primary and secondary system heat exchangers. The bay water is pumped out at a nominal flow rate of 1.2 million gallons per minute (75,000 L/s) per unit (Unit 1 and 2) for each steam turbine condenser. The water is returned to the bay no more than 12 °F (6.7 °C) warmer than the bay water. Unlike many other nuclear power plants, Calvert Cliffs did not have to utilize water cooling towers to return the hot water to its original temperature. As the water comes out very quickly and creates a sort of artificial rip current, it can be a dangerous place to fish. CCNPP 3 will only need about 10% of the bay cooling water volume needed for Unit 1 and 2 combined. The increase in fish and shellfish impingement and entrainment will be less than 3.5% over Unit 1 and 2 existing conditions.[citation needed]

In February 2009, Calvert Cliffs set a world record for pressurized water reactors (PWRs) by operating 692 days non-stop.[3] In addition, Unit 2's capacity factor in 2008 was a world-record high of 101.37 percent.[4]

On September 8, 2014, investigative journalists from The Daily Caller released an article and video detailing lax security at the Calvert Cliffs plant. In the article, journalists state that they were able to access the plant and drive within 600 feet of a nuclear reactor and that at no point did they encounter any attempts by security staff to impede their travels. They also note that the guard shack at the entrance to the plant was not only empty, but also padlocked shut.[5]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of 10 miles (16 km), concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about 50 miles (80 km), concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.[6]

The 2010 US population within 10 miles (16 km) of Calvert Cliffs was 48,798, an increase of 86.4 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within 50 miles (80 km) was 2,890,702, a decrease of 2.0 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Washington, D.C., (45 miles to city center).[7]

In 2000, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended the license of the plant for 20 additional years, making Calvert Cliffs the first nuclear plant in the United States to receive such an extension. President George W. Bush visited the plant in June 2005, the first time a president had visited a nuclear power plant in nearly two decades.[8]

On July 13, 2007, UniStar Nuclear Energy filed a partial application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review its plans to build a new nuclear power plant, Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant 3 (CCNPP 3) based on the AREVA US Evolutionary Power Reactor[9] (US-EPR), Generation III+,[10] four loop pressurized water reactor.

This third reactor will help address the need for more baseload, generating power in the Mid-Atlantic region. The plant will be located south of the existing CCNPP 1&2 and will be set back from the shoreline. Although only a single unit, its power plant footprint will be almost 2 times the size of the twin units CCNPP 1&2. It will have a closed-loop cooling system using a single hybrid mechanical draft cooling tower. It will incorporate plume abatement (no visible water vapor plume). Units 1&2 use an open-cycle heat dissipation system (no cooling towers). Two thirds of the heat produced by the Unit 3 reactor will be released to the atmosphere via the cooling tower. This also is a saturated steam plant with a main steam turbine (one high pressure turbine in tandem with three low pressure turbines) and a main generator design similar to Unit 1 & 2. ALSTOM will supply the main steam turbine and main generator.

On November 13, 2007, UniStar Nuclear Energy filed an application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity with the Maryland Public Service Commission for authority to construct CCNPP 3. This application is being considered in Case Number 9127.[11]

Opponents and supporters of the proposed third reactor at Calvert Cliffs have been involved in a series of public hearings before officials of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In March 2009, Bill Peil of southern Calvert County asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deny an emissions permit for the reactor due to health and safety concerns he maintains the plant poses to the community. UniStar Nuclear Energy President and CEO George Vanderheyden urged the NRC to approve the air permit application.[12]

In October 2010, Constellation Energy said that it had reached an impasse in negotiations for a federal loan guarantee to build the proposed third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs. The government was seeking a fee of $880 million on a guarantee of about $7.6 billion, to compensate taxpayers for the risk of default. However, Constellation Energy has said that fee would doom the project, “or the economics of any nuclear project, for that matter”.[13][14][15]

November 2010, a deal to transfer Constellation Energy Group's stake in a nuclear development company to its French partner, EDF Group, closed, according to the SEC. A month prior, Constellation agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in UniStar Nuclear Energy to EDF for $140 million, giving EDF sole ownership of the joint venture and its plans to develop a third unit at Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland. The deal called for EDF to transfer 3.5 million shares it owns, valued around $110 million, to Constellation and give up its seat on the Constellation board. EDF designee Samuel Minzberg resigned.

In April 2011, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) stated that UniStar is not eligible to build a third reactor, as it is not a US owned company since Constellation pulled out of the partnership in 2010. The NRC would continue to process the application, but a license would not be issued until the ownership requirements were met. The reactor is now estimated to cost $9.6 billion.[16]

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University became concerned that the discharge of heated cooling water from the plant would be detrimental to a crucial element of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, the bay's famed blue crabs.[17] In the late 1960s, litigation borne of Congress's National Environmental Policy Act eventually spawned one of the most celebrated environmental cases in American history, Calvert Cliffs Coordinating Committee, Inc. v. Atomic Energy Commission, forcing the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to consider the environmental impact of building and maintaining such an atomic energy plant.[18]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Calvert Cliffs was Reactor 1: 1 in 100,000; Reactor 2: 1 in 83,333, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.[19][20]

Unit 2 at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant was shut down on September 5, 2013 after a malfunction during testing, but was re-opened September 10, 2013 after the required maintenance was performed.[21]